a short note recognizing a source of information or of a quoted passage

"the student's essay failed to list several important citations"; "the acknowledgments are usually printed at the front of a book"; "the article includes mention of similar clinical cases"

quotation, quote, citation(noun)

a passage or expression that is quoted or cited

citation(noun)

a summons that commands the appearance of a party at a proceeding

Citation(noun)

thoroughbred that won the triple crown in 1948

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citation(Noun)

An official summons or notice given to a person to appear; the paper containing such summons or notice.

citation(Noun)

The act of citing a passage from a book, or from another person, in his own words.

citation(Noun)

The passage or words quoted; quotation.

citation(Noun)

Enumeration; mention; as, a citation of facts.

citation(Noun)

A reference to decided cases, or books of authority, to prove a point in law.

citation(Noun)

A commendation in recognition of some achievement, or a formal statement of an achievement.

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Citation(noun)

an official summons or notice given to a person to appear; the paper containing such summons or notice

Citation(noun)

the act of citing a passage from a book, or from another person, in his own words; also, the passage or words quoted; quotation

Citation(noun)

enumeration; mention; as, a citation of facts

Citation(noun)

a reference to decided cases, or books of authority, to prove a point in law

Origin: [F. citation, LL. citatio, fr.L. citare to cite. See Cite]

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Citation

Broadly, a citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of acknowledging the relevance of the works of others to the topic of discussion at the spot where the citation appears. Generally the combination of both the in-body citation and the bibliographic entry constitutes what is commonly thought of as a citation. References to single, machine-readable assertions in electronic scientific articles are known as nanopublications, a form of microattribution.
Citation has several important purposes: to uphold intellectual honesty, to attribute prior or unoriginal work and ideas to the correct sources, to allow the reader to determine independently whether the referenced material supports the author's argument in the claimed way, and to help the reader gauge the strength and validity of the material the author has used.
The forms of citations generally subscribe to one of the generally accepted citations systems, such as the Oxford, Harvard, MLA, American Sociological Association, American Psychological Association, and other citations systems, as their syntactic conventions are widely known and easily interpreted by readers. Each of these citation systems has its respective advantages and disadvantages relative to the trade-offs of being informative and thus are chosen relative to the needs of the type of publication being crafted. Editors will often specify the citation system to use.